3rd - Network Analysis

With regard to this reading assignment, I would like to focus on “subgroups”.

As Cross analyzed them on the page 14 of his book, “subgroups can be good or bad”. While a subgroup whose cohesiveness is weak tends not to perform a mission given to the subgroup well, each member of it can be integrated easily as a whole team. On the contrary, another subgroup whose cohesiveness is strong tends to get its own job done well, and whereas, the subgroup could play a role as an obstacle to integrate the whole team.

Applying this concept to my experience in the Yonsei Chunchu, as I did at the second post, a group of members that entered the organization at the same time can be refer to as a subgroup. As I mentioned above, despite that the subgroup in which I was had weak cohesiveness, and therefore, the performance as a subgroup was not good, each member performed his/her job well in his/her department.
On the other hand, the other group, which was hierarchically lower than mine, was famous for strong cohesiveness of the members, and they were proud of it. While I was serving as a manager level, how to deal with their strong cohesiveness and pride was one of the most important works. For this, I committed various works, from easy one to tough one, to the subgroup. Fortunately, the most jobs were done well, and their pride was respected properly, too.

However, problems occurred as they went up to the hierarchically high level – manager level. Despite that the number of people may well be reduced when their turn to be managers, since they got too used to working together, they too much struggled to decide who would leave and remain. The other problem was that they didn’t have a strong leader within their group. Due to this, they, again, had a hard time selecting the Chief Editor and the Vice Chief Editor, which are the highest level, and even after that, they struggled to get support from lower level members.

Through this case, I realized it is important to take advantage of their strong cohesiveness and, at the same time, grow a leader within the group in managing this kind of subgroup.